Communist countries and the West is pretty solid, thank God. I don't have to worry that Gustaf's contacts with Prague could be any threat to me." What? What was that she just said to herself? "The police barrier is pretty solid, thank God"? Did she really say, "Thank God"? Did she-an émigré everyone pities for losing her home- land-did she actually sa)', "Thank God"? G ustaf had come to know Martin by chance, over a business negotia- tion. He met Irena much later, when she was already widowed. They liked each other, but they were shy. Whereupon the husband hurried in from the beyond to help them along by being a ready subject for conversation. When Gustaf learned from Irena that Martin had been born the same year he was, he heard the col- lapse of the wall that separated him from this much younger woman, and he felt a grate:fi.ù affection for the dead man whose age encouraged him to court the man's beautiful wife. Gustaf worshipped his deceased mother; he tolerated (without pleasure) two grown daughters; he was fleeing his wife. He would very much have liked to divorce if it could be done amicably: Since that was impossible, he did his best to stay away from Sweden. Like him, Irena had two daughters, who were also on the brink of living on their own. For the elder one Gustaf bought a studio apartment, and he arranged to send the younger one to a boarding school in En- gland, so that Irena, living alone, could take him in. She was dazzled by his goodness, which everyone saw as the main trait, the most striking, almost unbelievable trait of his character. He charmed women by it; they understood only too late that the goodness was less a weapon of seduction than a weapon of defense. His mother's darling boy, he was incapable of living on his own without women's caretaking. But he tolerated all the less well their demands, their arguments, their tears, and even their too present, too expansive bodies. To keep them around and at the same time avoid them, he would lob great artillery shells of goodness at them. Under cover of the smoke he would beat his retreat. In the face of his goodness, Irena was at first unsettled, confused: Why was he so kind, so generous, so undemanding? How could she repay him? The only rec- ompense she could figure out was to dis- play her desire. She would set her wide- eyed gaze on him, a gaze that demanded some immense, intoxicating, nameless thing. Her desire; the sad story of her desire. She had never known sexual pleasure before she met Martin. Then she bore a child, moved from Prague to France with a second daughter in her bell)', and soon after that Martin was dead. She went through some long, hard years then, forced to take on any sort of work-cleaning houses, caring for a rich paraplegic-and it was a big triumph just to get the chance to do translations from Russian to French (she was glad to have studied languages seriously in Prague). The years rolled by, and on posters, on billboards, on the covers of magazines displayed on the newsstands, women stripped and couples kissed and men strutted in underpants, while amid the universal orgy her own body roamed the streets neglected and invisible. So meeting Gustaf had been a festi- IF '---- J: ,U> ,J) ',,' ,oou_ .; Ii <i\.' . ' Y A y1 ., , .-; : ..... .' . ;i; 'ú:<i <' .: :u...1iJ':', .,IJ. g '" , , ." , i ' :. ." j, . " . : . ": 0 /"; 1'\ : . ' +. '---' :' r ' '. \f. .'. '1 '3/ 9 ,* \ i , , , _u ! .... , . ..' ..)" . . : i:{ '. : ....: ..r ""'" :' 1 > .'; '.. ,':" ,". ,../;ç' ", ,: . . ;"ff1:-"..t..: .. . , . ,;' } . ' :.., il': , ; / /'" . . ..*. "" ... ".-5 '):. l L ,, " ;t , .. ....-....: :. ".Y .' .. .. .... '-.. .' . .. ?;; .r 1 :1 -"'::&Jh:; I:. ':t!":',:J ." ';4\. .;>>.;.... o.w.",= 0'" (. ,., .. .: :U:...: " . .' .f. \ ';:': '11:,'" "*". .' ',' ....9... . .." ,. "::".".'. ..--. -.... .' ;. ",", .. ;.' .. ," . " ,...,.i U :':,',. .;$<:'<, ..' "':' , .-//" "U \ ^ .., . .. .. .. . . ,'.' '\ ,;: ;b.Jt;;: 0, '" . ":' . ".;Mf:Ø'1': } :: ...:.i. :/-d> .':':"";:' . ". ....:-" ff" '.." """U'.':ì' . . I I T 11 val. Mter such a long time, her body, her face were finally being seen and appreci- ated, and, because they were pleasing, a man had invited her to share life with him. It was in the midst of that en- chantment that her mother turned up in Paris. But at perhaps that same time, or very slightly later, she began to harbor a vague suspicion that her body had not entirely escaped the fate it was appar- ently destined for all along. That Gust who was fleeing his wife, his women, was looking to her not for an adventure, a new youth, a freedom of the senses, but for a rest. Let's not exaggerate; her body did not go untouched; but her suspicion grew that it was being touched less than it deserved. E urope's Communism burned out exactly two hundred years after the French Revolution took fire. For Irena's Parisian friend Sylvie, that was a coinci- dence loaded with meaning. But with what meaning? What name could be given to the triumphal arch spanning those two majestic dates? The Arch of the Two Greatest European Revolutions? Or .r . , u., .... , ) , ^.."'" i2:> -i- " " )iff - . ......... .. -... . . ........ . ' ." ". ( /\, " .' ,:{ ': - ."': .... . Ä >' y b , " --, "\ :. . ß :.. ': I . "' .. . : l.' y . ' , :Ji ,:{";'{. s' >:;.: , ,: " . .. . fi: .J . t.:) " ; "":.L :;. ."".: "":::* .,:: ":j'.. I :':;j f '.:.f: . ø--! ., .: . ,: ":l:'. ::< ."... " . . ..... . 'c }-. .'1Ä.. A. . pt... . ......... ..,. :./! : ' '; r. ^ . .. .d' , . ,.", . " ,- ...-,,' .""-:. ............ ..... ..: I t ..- . ''] have a fear of commitment to you. "